|
Austerlitz
Austerlitz , Czech Slavkov u Brna, town, S Czech Republic, in Moravia. An agricultural center, the town has sugar refineries and cotton mills. It became a seat of the Anabaptists in 1528. At Austerlitz, in the "battle of the three emperors," Napoleon I won (Dec. 2, 1805) his most brilliant vic...
Read more
|
|
Confederation of the Rhine
Confederation of the Rhine league of German states formed by Emperor Napoleon I in 1806 after his defeat of the Austrians at Austerlitz . Among its members were the newly created kingdoms of Bavaria and Württenberg (see Pressburg, Treaty of ), the grand duchies of Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and...
Read more
|
|
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire , 1899-1987, American dancer, actor, and singer, b. Omaha, Nebr., as Frederick Austerlitz. After 1911 he and his sister Adele formed a successful Broadway vaudeville team. After his sister retired, Astaire became a film actor (1933). He became known as a debonair song-and-dance man, par...
Read more
|
|
Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov
Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov , 1745-1813, Russian field marshal. He fought against the Polish Confederation of Bar (see Bar, Confederation of ) and served in the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1768-74 and 1787-92, in which he lost an eye. He took part (1805) in the battle of Austerlitz, which was fought a...
Read more
|
|
Vernet
Vernet , French family of painters. Claude Joseph Vernet, 1714-89, marine painter, b. Avignon, studied with his father, Antoine Vernet, a decorative painter, and in Rome, where he acquired a reputation for fine work. He was summoned to Paris in 1753 and commissioned by the king to paint the famous...
Read more
|
|
Brno
Brno , Ger. Brünn, city (1991 pop. 388,296), SE Czech Republic, at the confluence of the Svratka and Svitava rivers. It is the second largest city of the Czech Republic and the chief city of Moravia . Brno is an industrial center known for its international trade fairs and for its textile an...
Read more
|
|
Francis II
Francis II 1768-1835, last Holy Roman emperor (1792-1806), first emperor of Austria as Francis I (1804-35), king of Bohemia and of Hungary (1792-1835). He succeeded his father, Leopold II, shortly before the outbreak of war with France (see French Revolutionary Wars ). Francis's armies were eventu...
Read more
|
|
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay , 1892-1950, American poet, b. Rockland, Maine, grad. Vassar College, 1917. One of the most popular poets of her era, Millay was admired as much for the bohemian freedom of her youthful lifestyle as for her verse. During the early 1920s she lived in Greenwich Village, New Yor...
Read more
|
|
Alexander I
Alexander I 1777-1825, czar of Russia (1801-25), son of Paul I (in whose murder he may have taken an indirect part). In the first years of his reign the liberalism of his Swiss tutor, Frédéric César de La Harpe , seemed to influence Alexander. He suppressed the secret police...
Read more
|
|
Charles XIV
Charles XIV (Charles John; Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte) , 1763-1844, king of Sweden and Norway (1818-44), French Revolutionary general. Bernadotte rose from the ranks, served brilliantly under Napoleon Bonaparte in the Italian campaign (1796-97), was French ambassador at Vienna (1798), and was ...
Read more
|